Right here is the great big Broadway chance that Jalen Brunson has, starting on Wednesday night against the Pacers:
He has the chance to be the Knicks’ Mark Messier.
Everybody knows the stakes for his team, biggest table stakes in a quarter-century just by making it this far. But if the Knicks do make it through this series and one more after that — if they win the eight hardest games there are to win in their sport — then Brunson will always be remembered as the basketball Messier. He will be the one, more than any of them, who gives the Knicks their first title in 52 years the way Messier carried the Rangers’ to their first in 54.
No. 11 of the Knicks trying to do what No. 11 of the Rangers did.
It’s not only him, of course. And guess what? The Pacers, who are young and fast and talented and cocky and on some heater themselves, think this is their time.
What we have seen to here, though, is that Brunson is the one having himself a time. Brunson is the one who had those two second halves, and especially those two fourth quarters, in Games 1 and 2 in Boston against the Celtics. Before that, Brunson is the one who made one of the storied shots in Knicks playoff history, first round or not, to close out the Pistons in Game 6 of that series.
Jalen Brunson is the one who has averaged just a tick under 25 points per game in the 61 games of his playoff career. Now he is nearly averaging 29 points in this playoff season, to go with 7.7 assists. He did not come here with the championship pedigree — at least not in the pros — that Messier did when he got to the Garden from the Edmonton Oilers. Brunson did not come here with that kind of fanfare when he came to the Garden from the Dallas Mavericks. But he has now established himself as the most important free agent signing in the city since Reggie Jackson, who came to the Yankees and helped win them two straight World Series. Brunson is not there yet, obviously. But working on it.
If the Knicks can win it all, Brunson will have turned out to be the kind of missing-piece difference maker that the great Dave DeBusschere was for the old Knicks when they traded Howie Komives and Walt Bellamy to the Pistons to get him. Even more than that it seems as if on a nightly basis, Rick Brunson’s kid has risen up to — up to and above — the occasion the way Walt Frazier once did at this time of year, the way Clyde did it on the night when Willis limped out and made those two jumpers before sitting out the rest of Game 7 in ’70. All Clyde did that night was score 36 points, hand out 19 assists and get seven rebounds, as tremendous a postseason performance ever seen around here, in anything. You know what that really was? It was the New York basketball version of Reggie’s three homers against the Dodgers in ’77.
Brunson, in his quiet and relentless way, now makes his brilliant play seem routine, the way Aaron Judge is doing that with the Yankees.
By the way? The Knicks still are only halfway to the NBA Finals, as much as they’ve done so far. And if anybody thinks things get easier now that the Celtics have been booted all the way to next season must have missed what the Pacers just did to the Cavaliers, whose regular season sure was better than Boston’s.
But the Knicks get this chance to get back at the Pacers for what happened last May, when they didn’t have Karl-Anthony Towns or Mikal Bridges and didn’t have very much of OG Anunoby and not only lost in seven games, but lost the last one at home. We keep hearing that the Garden is stronger than the ocean. Except that if you throw in that Game 7 against the Pacers last year, the Knicks’ record in their last seven home playoff games is 3-4.
Still: Knicks fans are allowed to think this might finally be their year if for no other reason than their team having Brunson, the best and most valuable player in pro basketball heading into this series. Listen, it’s hard to see him ever promising a victory, the way Messier did before Game 6 against the Devils in 1994 before delivering on that promise by scoring a hat trick, his own version of 3 home runs.
But Brunson takes it all on the same way Messier did, doing it with Clyde cool.
Here is something Brunson has said:
“I work really hard just to be where I am, and I know I’m not gonna stop doing that. I can adapt to any situation. I just put pressure on myself to work hard. Every goal for me is to be a leader on the court every time I step on the court.”
And here is a quote from the wayback machine from Messier:
“I think it’s important that the players really know who you are and what you stand for, what your beliefs are, and to be consistent in those if things are going good or going bad.”
Messier was a big winner with the Oilers, playing with Wayne Gretzky, before he finally made it to Broadway. Brunson was a winner at Villanova, but hadn’t won anything in Dallas playing with Luka Doncic before the Knicks did sign him as a free agent. Now he is already having the kind of career that will see his No. 11 raised to the Garden rafters someday. It’s not even worth raising the subject with Jalen Brunson. All he cares about is winning a title. Ending all the waiting for his team the way No. 11 of the Rangers once did that for his.
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